Senator Ben Murray-Bruce, the senator representing Bayelsa East in the National Assembly, has criticized governors over their inability to pay workers. This comes weeks after he faulted the calls by some state governors to reduce the minimum wage of N18,000. According to Bruce, governors who cannot pay the N18,000 minimum wage should not be allowed to spend multi millions on Christmas hampers for people like him who can afford it. The senator in a series of tweets, warned the state governors against giving Christmas hampers during the yuletide without paying the arrears of workers.
Ben Bruce’s remarks comes just days after Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun state was criticized for allegedly approving N50million on fireworks and Christmas decorations. The allegation was made by the Osun state chapter of the PDP on December 14, who described the project as “wasteful spending and misplacement of priority”. According to the PDP, Aregbesola should give pay workers salary and not waste money on fireworks.